Also 6–7 throwe, 6– Sc. thraw. [f. THROW v.1] The act expressed by THROW v.1; a twist; a cast.
I. A twist, a turn. * In Sc. form thraw.
1. An act of twisting or turning; the fact or condition of being twisted; a turn or twist round, or to one side, or out of the straight or regular line; a wrench, crook, warp; also the act of turning a key, or the like. Also fig. In a throw, crookedly, awry. Sc.
a. 1585. Polwart, Flyting w. Montgomerie, 564. The bleared bucke … Hes right trim teeth, somewhat set in a thraw.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., X. 465. Each torture consisting of three winding throwes of euery pinne; which amounted to twenty one throwes.
a. 1653. Binning, Serm. (1845), 68. Man’s fall from God hath made a wretched thraw and crook in the soul.
1785. Burns, Halloween, xxii. She turns the key wi’ cannie thraw.
1814. Scott, Wav., xlviii. Deil be wi’ me if I do not give your craig [neck] a thraw.
1902. Westm. Gaz., 15 May, 10/2. When the beacon took a ‘thrawe’ and his workmen fled into the tower, then almost finished, he sat unmoved reading his Bille.
b. fig. A perverse twist of temper or humor; a fit of perversity or ‘thrawnness.’ mod.Sc.
1788. R. Galloway, Poems, 93 (Jam.). Lasses were kiss’d … Nor seem’d to tak it ill, Wi’ thraw that day.
1814. J. Train, Strains Mount. Muse, 113 (ibid.). Auld Lucky Nature … unto Miss Scotia, just out of a thraw, She gave a bleak wilderness, barren and raw.
1864. T. Bruce, in Poets Ayrshire (1910), 233. Agents an’ corks, in ruthless thraw Sought out each scob an’ tear.
c. Phrase. Heads and thraws, Sc.: see quot. 1825.
1728. Ramsay, To Robt. Yarde, 14. A laigh hut, where sax thegither Ly heads and thraws on craps of heather.
1765. Museum Rust., IV. cvi. 462. They lay root-ends and crop-ends together, or, as is commonly called, heads and thraws.
1819. Scott, Leg. Montrose, vi. The great barn would hold fifty more, if they would lie heads and thraws.
1825. Jamieson, Heads-and-thraws, with the heads and feet, or heads and points, lying in opposite directions…. To play at heads and thraws, to play at push-pin.
** In Eng. form throw.
2. Mech. The action or motion of a slide-valve, or of a crank, eccentric, or cam; also, the extent of this measured on a straight line passing through the center of motion; also, a crank-arm; a crank.
1829. Three throw [see THREE III. 2].
1864. in Webster.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., s.v. Crank, A two-throw or three-throw crank-shaft is one having so many cranks set at different angles on the shaft.
1888. Hasluck, Model Engin. Handybk. (1900), 77. When the space between the bearings is limited, that part of the rod forming the crank throws, is made elliptical in section.
1904. Lineham, Text Bk. Mech. Engin., 637. The eccentricity … must be measured from centre of eccentric sheave to centre of shaft. This amount we shall sometimes call the throw.
b. Electr. (See quot.)
1902. O’Conor Sloane, Electr. Dict., Throw, in a galvanometer, the instantaneous deflection of the needle when the contact or closing of the circuit is instantaneous, or when the discharge is completed before the needle begins to move.
c. Deflection from the right line.
1858. Mallet, in Rep. Brit. Assoc., I. 94. The obliquity of throw of each of the balls … from their respective cardinal and vertical planes.
3. A twist of some fiber (e.g., silk). rare–1.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-Cap, IV. 857. That stalk whereto her hermitage She tacked by golden throw of silk.
4. A machine by which a rotary motion is given to an object while being shaped; a lathe, esp. one worked by hand: cf. throw-lathe in THROW- 1.
1657. Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 490. Boxes are … either made with a throwe, or composed of a thin broad chip.
1659. Hoole, Comenius’ Vis. World (1777), 89. The turner sitting over the treddle, turneth with a throw.
1836–8. Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VIII. 454. The jigger, also called a throw, is larger than, yet much resembling a lapidary’s wheel.
1879. Holtzapffel, Turning, IV. 29. The potter’s lathe or ‘throw.’… The term throw, also applied to the clock throw.
II. 5. An act of throwing a missile, etc.; a forcible propulsion or delivery from or as from the hand or arm; a cast. Also fig. (As a fault in Cricket: see BOWL v.1 4 and cf. quots. 1901 here.)
To have a throw at (fig.), to attack, have an attempt at; to have a ‘fling’ at.
1530. Palsgr., 233/1. Hurle or throwe with a stone, coup de pierre.
1548. Elyot, Dict., Iactus, a throwe, a hurle, a caste.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. v. 9. He hewd, and lasht, and foynd, and thundred blowes … Ne plate, ne male, could ward so mighty throwes.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., 157. It is so many million of millions odds to one against any single throw, that the assigned order will not be cast.
1698. Collier, Immor. Stage, iii. 101. The Old Batchelour has a Throw at the Dissenting Ministers.
1755. Game at Cricket, 10. If in running a Notch, the Wicket is struck down by a Throw, it’s out.
1884. Mil. Engineering (ed. 3), I. II. 45. Keep the shovellers back at least 10 feet from the edge of the excavation; otherwise they interfere with the throw of the diggers.
1895. Crockett, Men of Moss-Hags, l. We will hae a thraw at it, to see if we canna break through the Thieves’ Hole.
1901. Speaker, 5 Jan., 361/2. There is no satisfactory definition of a ‘throw’ [at Cricket]. What one man conscientiously regards as ‘throwing,’ another … equally conscientiously passes as bowling.
1901. Westm. Gaz., 11 Jan., 5/2. I wonder what [he] would say if anyone told him he could not tell a throw from a fairly-bowled ball.
6. The distance to which anything may or is to be thrown: often qualified, as a stone’s throw.
1582. N. Lichefield, trans. Castanheda’s Conq. E. Ind., I. lxvii. 138. The enimyes were come, within the throwe of a Dart.
1607. Shaks., Cor., V. ii. 21. Like to a Bowle vpon a subtle ground I haue tumbled past the throw.
1704. Swift, Batt. Bks., Misc. (1711), 252. The two Cavaliers had now approach’d within a Throw of a Lance.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, I. ix. She stank so, that nobody durst come within a stone’s throw of her.
1893. F. F. Moore, I Forbid Banns (1899), 16. The vessel steamed within a biscuit-throw of the southern cliffs.
7. spec. a. A cast at dice; the number cast. Also fig.
1577. Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., in Holinshed, I. 84/1. Fall how it will, this throwe is for an huddle.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., II. i. 33. The greater throw May turne by fortune from the weaker hand.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xx. § 66. Freede from the awe of open challenges of the Crowne, and from throwes at his maine.
a. 1667. Jer. Taylor, Serm. Ephes. v. 32–3, Wks. 1831, I. 319. They … cast a die … of the greatest interest in the world, next to the last throw for eternity.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3839/4. The most at Three Throws is to have him.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 368. A man’s friends … on an ill throw don’t care to go his halves.
1759. Hist., in Ann. Reg., 8/1. This able general, who never risques his fortune on a single throw, began to think of a retreat.
1850. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. ii. (1872), 24. The gambler who improvidently stakes all upon a moment’s throw.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 259. They had ventured their all, or nearly their all, on this one throw.
b. A cast of a net, a fishing-line, etc.; = CAST sb. 5, 5 c. Also fig.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Acts ii. 11. This was the firste caste and throwe of his nette.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., II. 20. With the self-same throw, To catch the quarry and the vermin too.
1851. Newland, The Erne, 75. For the trout, the gillaroo, and the jenkin, the northern shore affords the best throws.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, v. (1880), 159. When … he can manage this throw.
c. Wrestling. The throwing down of an opponent, which finishes a bout or round: cf. FALL sb.1 13, CAST sb. 11.
1819. Sporting Mag., IV. 236. The Irish trump again got the throw.
1861. Paley, Æschylus (ed. 2), Choephoroe, 331, note. ἀτρίακτος, ‘invincible,’ from the three throws of a wrestler.
d. A felling of timber: cf. FALL sb.1 14; also, the direction in which a tree is caused to fall.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 289. While all these throws of timber have successively taken place, no attempt has been made to fill up the gaps. Ibid. (1880), Gt. Estate, 173. The throw of oak that was going on in one part of the Chace.
8. Geol. and Mining. A dislocation in a vein or stratum, in which the part on one side of the fracture is displaced up or down; = FAULT sb. 9; also, the amount of vertical displacement so caused.
1796. Outram, in Phil. Trans., LXXXVI. 351. A fault, throw, or break of the strata, which was filled with shale.
1828. Craven Gloss., Throw,… a disrupture of the beds or strata.
1855. J. R. Leifchild, Cornwall Mines, 86. The ‘throw’ or perpendicular distance between the corresponding strata on the opposites of a vein, varies from a few inches to thirty or forty, or even a hundred fathoms.
